


If Winter Comes

by Vita_S_West



Category: Inspector Morse & Related Fandoms, Lewis (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 04:24:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18242339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vita_S_West/pseuds/Vita_S_West
Summary: James has to have a lumbar puncture, while Robbie must contend with the waiting room.





	If Winter Comes

**Author's Note:**

> heads up if these aren't your jam: needles are referenced and mentioned, but not discussed in details. lots of hospital descriptions too

When James had asked Robbie to drive him home from the hospital, Robbie assumed that he would be able to sit with him during the procedure. However, Robbie was promptly dispatched to the waiting room, leaving James in a long, bright and sterile room, sectioned by curtains. He had watched as James disappeared into one of the sections, into the buzz of patients and staff, before reluctantly leaving. In the waiting room, he stared at a wall that used to be white, much in the way a all his hair used to be dark brown, before time and stress streaked it.

 _It was fine_ , he told himself, his foot tapping a mile a minute. _James was fine. It was a routine procedure. There were few side effects to lumbar punctures. The needle may not even be that big._

A voice startled him from his reverie. “Everything all right?”

“Hm?”

It was a middle aged women wearing a green turtleneck. “Are you alright?” she asked again.

“Yeah I’m just… worrying about my partner. Yourself?”

She smiled. “I’m seeing a specialist for my knee. Hopefully, I won’t need surgery.”

“Hopefully,” he agreed.

“What’s your partner in for?”

“He’s getting a procedure done. A small one. Not a big deal. No need to worry.” He quoted James. It tasted like a lie on his tongue.

“I’m sure he’s in very capable hands.”

Robbie agreed again, but still wished the capable hands were those of Laura or someone else he trusted unquestionably with James.

The woman got up after the PA system called her number and the colour of the dots on the floor that she was supposed to follow to her appointment. 

Alone with his thoughts once more, he shifted in his chair, wondering if waiting room chairs were specifically designed to be uncomfortable. So you could never get comfortable enough to forget that you were in a waiting room. He stared at the clock on the wall and then his own wristwatch. The wall clock was two minutes slow.

He knew logically that James would be fine. He wasn’t in any life threatening danger. Still, the waiting room grated his every nerve, twisting him into a tight ball of anxiety. Nearby an old woman loudly explained the plot of a Miss Marple episode to her husband, who, apparently hard of hearing, asked her to repeat herself every second sentence. Someone else let out a hacking cough. The hairs on the back of Robbie’s neck stood up. James would be fine. But what if he _wasn’t?_ Thinking about it made his foot tap quicker. It had barely been thirty minutes since he sat down. It was agonizing. He began contemplating walking to get coffee. It would kill some time, but he didn't like the idea of leaving the waiting room. He didn’t like the idea of going further away from James.

Just outside the waiting room, woman chased a screaming, run-away toddler.

“Vera!” she scolded her.

Robbie felt a deep affinity to Vera in that moment. He stood up to pace, as an elderly man pushed a younger man in a wheelchair into the waiting area. He nodded at them as he passed. After reaching the perimeter of the room, he meandered back to his seat. There was so much dirt on the floor. Did anyone ever clean it? Below the clock was a poster that told him correct hand-washing procedure. To the left of it, one taught him how to cough correctly (into his elbow). He wondered what other preventative measures were stored chiefly in hospitals, the places the posters were meant to keep you out of. He had a few minutes to ponder this, though he didn’t think it was particularly interesting. His thoughts kept sliding back to James, where they marinated.

He didn’t realize that he was gritting his teeth until a nurse called, “Robbie? Robbie Lewis?”

Lewis jumped to his feet, “Yes that’s me!”

“You can see him now.”

***

As he approached the gap in the curtains, Robbie saw James’s black socks first. He lay on his back, his feet all but dangling off the narrow hospital bed. He wore a blue hospital gown over his regular trousers. Staring up at the ceiling, his face was twisted into a grimace. When his eyes landed on Robbie, he smiled. In their curtained area, the fluorescent lights were dull. Below the NO VISITORS sign, there was a nurse’s call button and a glass-covered code button. The latter looked rather like a fire alarm.

“All right, lad?” Robbie’s voice was a little gruff.

“Mm, yes. The most fun one can have in Oxford without a good murder.”

“Don’t say that _too_ loudly.”

James snorted. “It was fine. You only really feel it when it’s going in.”

“How’d that feel, then?”

“Pointy.”

Under normal circumstances, Robbie would have rolled his eyes. “Do they know when they’ll get the results?”

“They still have some tests to run,” James said, “but the pressure was normal.”

“It was?” Robbie felt himself deflate. “You don’t need another one or-or surgery or something?”

James shook his head no. “I’ll have a checkup in six months, but otherwise everything looks good.”

Robbie sat down on a small black wheely stool next to the bed. It was certainly meant for a medical professional, as the sign reminded him. “How long do you have to—“

“We’ll wait about thirty minutes. Then we can head off.”

Robbie nodded, smiling down at him. “Glad you’re alright.”

James smiled back, lifting his hand up. Robbie took it, giving it a squeeze. “You were really worried, weren’t you?” James asked.

“Just a little. What if we got a case and there was no one to decipher Latin or quote Shelley for me. Or piss off the academics.”

The joke sounded hollow, but James played along. “I suppose you would have to learn some Latin.”

Robbie scoffed. “No need. I’ve got you.” He squeezed his hand again.

“Lucky you,” James murmured.

Around them they heard phones ringing and someone, who they hoped was a nurse, loudly exclaim, “He had some of the nicest veins I’ve ever seen.” Someone behind another curtain puked loudly and then the smell of rubbing alcohol permeated through the air.

Robbie could see people milling about through the crack in the curtain. It felt like it was worlds away. James’s eyes drifted closed. His chest rose and fell with steady breaths. He looked peaceful. It set Robbie at ease.

“Are you falling asleep?” Robbie asked.

“No, I’m just thinking.”

“About anything good?”

“Just about your cock,” James said out of the corner of his mouth. Slowly, James’s eyes drifted open, and gave Robbie a grin that he could only describe as cheeky, and perhaps shameless.

“Oh, is that all?” he scoffed. He felt a blush settle on his cheeks, even if it was just the two of them. James snickered.

“You’re feeling fine then.” Robbie found himself laughing, because of the sudden release of tension. He hadn’t even realized that he was still worried. “You’re a real wanker, you are.”

“It’s nice to see you laugh,” James said. “You looked so serious.”

“I don’t like seeing you like this, James. In the hospital. I don’t like the idea of you being sick.”

James sighed deeply. “It’s just an unfortunate fact of life.”

“You make it sound so banal,” Robbie muttered darkly.

“It _is_.”

“Not to me! And even if it were. That doesn’t make it better.”

Silence fell for a moment. James turned his gaze back to the ceiling and Robbie struggled think of something to say. Something to explain himself. He had nearly lost his mind with worry in the waiting room and James was acting damned near blasé. He took a ragged breath and held James’s hand tightly. Maybe that would convey what his words couldn’t. What his twisted throat and tightened nerves couldn’t choked out in that moment.

“If I could not be sick, for you,” James said quietly, still staring at the ceiling, “I would be. Besides. I’d rather it be me than you.”

Robbie gripped his hand tighter. “ _James_ ,” he warned.

“It’s true. I’m glad you’re the one who is okay.”

“I wasn’t—” Robbie choked, feeling incredibly selfish to tell the man in the hospital bed that _he_ wasn’t okay. “I’m sorry. I-I don’t mean it like that. I just mean. I won’t feel better until you’re better.” Taking his hand away, he rubbed his face with a groan.

“Hey,” James said, reaching for Robbie. “I’m here. I’m right here.”

“I’m the one who’s supposed to be comforting you,” Robbie said, giving James a pained smile.

James shrugged as best as a man lying on his back could. "I like comforting you." He paused for a moment before murmuring, “ _O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?_ ”

“What’s that?”

“A Shelley quote. Just for you.”

“Very funny.”

“I usually am.”

“Debatable.”

James mused, “I bet we could find an academic to harass. Maybe in the geriatric ward...”

They chuckled quietly, and then lapsed into silence. James’s eyes drifted shut and Robbie slid his hand through his hair. It was soft and shiny, even in the dull light of the fluorescents. James’s eyes remained closed, and Robbie continued to stroke his hair. They stayed like that, a quiet pocket in a noisy and disordered room, for some time.

It was there last moment of silence before a nurse came to check James’s vitals. She explained that he might have headaches and that he should drink some caffeine and take it easy for the day.

“Bed rest,” Robbie told him and James snorted.

The nurse, Maria, left them while James undid the strings of his hospital gown. A pale pink coloured the skin of James’s lower back. The disinfectant. Looking, closer, Robbie couldn’t see much of a puncture wound. Just a dot between the ridges of his spine. There wasn’t a scar or anything permanent to mark him, but Robbie still didn’t like the look of it.

Robbie helped him back into his shirt. As James buttoned it, he smoothed the shirt over his shoulders, letting his hands rest there for a moment. He could feel James’s warmth through the shirt. He was about the put James’s coat over his shoulders, when the nurse returned.

“Don’t put your coat on until you get outside. You’ll want some fresh air, otherwise you’ll get too hot and dizzy. We don’t want any fainting around here.”

“No not at all,” Robbie agreed, tucking James’s coat under his arm.

“I feel fine,” James told them both, a little irritably.

And he was fine until he stood up. Then he swayed, a grimace twisting his features as he made a grab Robbie. As the nurse scolded him, Robbie steadied him.

“I got him,” he said firmly, putting his arm around his waist, careful not to put pressure on the pink-covered area.  

“I’m fine,” James said again. He didn’t pull away, but rather leaned on him as Robbie led the way.

“Go _slowly_ ,” Maria said.

“We will.”

James pressed his hand lightly to his lower back, just below Robbie’s arm.

“Sore?” Robbie asked, as he led him down the hallway.

“It’s just unpleasant.” His grimace expressed a more severe complaint.

“We’ll get you to bed soon.”

Walking slowly, they passed the waiting room and it’s sedate clock.

“That’ll be nice,” James admitted. “It’ll be good to get out of here.”

Robbie couldn’t agree more. “Want anything from the store before we head home?”

James shook his head no.

The outside air was cool. They paused, while Robbie helped James into his coat. James smirked and batted Robbie’s hands away as he tried to do up the buttons. “They stuck the needle in my back, not my hands.”

“Sorry,” Robbie muttered.

“Hey,” James said, taking his hand, bending his head forward to rest on Robbie’s. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Let’s get you home.”


End file.
